Capacity upgrade planned for Hawaiki cable

Hawaiki Submarine Cable has contracted with US-based Ciena Corp to increase the capacity of its deep-sea fibre optic cable by more than half.

The 15,000-kilometre cable links Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific and the United States and started operating in July with a transmission capacity of 43.8 terabits of data a second.

Now Hawaiki plans to upgrade that to 67 terabits per second using Ciena’s GeoMesh solution.

That will give Hawaiki the lowest cost for per bit of data transmitted, and let it offer greater granularity of capacity products for customers, the companies said in a joint statement.

“As the provider of the largest and fastest link between Australia, New Zealand, and the US, we recognize our customers’ need for innovative capacity solutions that support a shorter time-to-market and improved revenue generation,” Hawaiki chief executive Remi Galasso said.

“Our collaboration with Ciena will allow us to both scale our infrastructure with minimal operational complications and meet market requirements for greater connectivity and diversity across the Pacific.”

Hawaiki is a carrier-neutral service linking Sydney, New Zealand, American Samoa, Hawaii and Oregon. The New Zealand link comes ashore at Mangawhai head.

The US$300 million project was developed with support from anchor customers including Amazon Web Services, Vodafone, American Samoa Telecommunications Authority and Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand.